Eat, sleep, and poop. That’s what babies do. Every parent has challenges and questions about these activities and there is an abundance of information on eating and sleeping, but poop? The appearance and behavior of a child’s stools can give more information about the child’s health than any other factor, but we just don’t seem to like to talk about it.

From an award-winning, three-time author—and a mother—Baby Poop brings the hard-to-find facts that equip parents to help their babies be happier and healthier, head off the occasional dire situation, and to optimize their child’s lifelong health.

Baby Poop is about child health dilemmas faced in industrialized nations. These are distinctly different from the challenges in less developed countries, as most of these challenges are caused directly by modernization. Infectious disease rates are high in many less developed parts of the world, with high infant and child mortality rates—but industrialization, medicine, and money are not the end-all answers to optimal child survival. Baby Poop illuminates how a much larger portion of children in developed nations suffer from colic, reflux, food allergies, asthma, autism, and diabetes than those in the developing world—and how modern practices are encouraging these.

Edited my Susan Markel, MD